Bochco Show Will Be the `One' to See

Published
4:00 am PDT, Friday, July 21, 1995

1995-07-21 04:00:00 PDT Pasadena -- Who killed Jessica Costello? The question might lack the Laura Palmer resonance of a few years ago, but it will have more staying power if ABC's "Murder One" finds an audience.

Just to get it out of the way, let me say that producer Steven Bochco's latest series will be a stunner, the best new show of the fall season.

If Bochco's "L.A. Law" was a college graduate compared to the eighth-grade dramas surrounding it in its day, "Murder One" is a Ph.D.

The pilot episode bristles with intelligence, urbanity, intrigue and cynical legal maneuvering as it prepares viewers to follow the complex course of a single murder case through an entire TV season.

The victim is Jessica Costello, a 15-year- old girl murdered in a Hollywood apartment building owned by a Los Angeles power broker.

Bochco tells the story of the investigation and subsequent trial through the vantage point of a cunning defense attorney played by Daniel Benzali.

BAD TIME SLOT

Bochco, whose credits also include "Hill Street Blues" and "NYPD Blue," admits he'd have preferred an easier time slot. But he won't complain.

"I've always had a deal with ABC and, for that matter, pretty much with every network I've ever worked with," he said. "Which is, if you don't tell me how to make the show, I won't tell you how to schedule it."

It's been rumored that the rough time slot was ABC's way of blowing off Bochco after he announced a new series development deal with CBS. Not so, said Bochco, noting that ABC is committed to a full season of "Murder One."

"You don't invest 30-plus million dollars and a 23-episode commitment and put it in a time slot with the intention of either hurting the show, or hurting the person who created the show," Bochco said. "That's just foolish."

For its part, ABC will give "Murder One" a running start by scheduling the first three episodes -- the show will premiere in September -- on Tuesday or Wednesday before moving the series to its regular Thursday berth.

If he's not battling the network, Bochco certainly is fighting the notion that viewers lack the patience to follow one story line over an entire season.

He's designed "Murder One" to include a complete, self-contained "B" story line each week. And for viewers who miss a week or two of the longer story arc, Bochco will insert a Court TV-type recap of events every week -- a sort of TV show within the TV show.

DELAYING GRATIFICATION

But Bochco is still placing a rare measure of faith in the television audience's willingness to delay its gratification.

"We look at this as a novel, as a book," he said. "What we're hoping is that the audience will defer its immediate need for a quick jolt in exchange for a more long- term involvement, which, hopefully, will have a more complex and deeper emotional payoff."

He was asked about "Twin Peaks," a murder mystery that kept shedding viewers as it delayed the resolution of the Laura Palmer murder.

"People did not get bored with one story," Bochco snapped. "People got bored with no story. We have a story."

We also have evidence, right in downtown L.A., of sustained public interest in a real-life murder case. The O.J. Simpson trial may yet outlive "Murder One."

Bochco said the Simpson case has no bearing on his show. He said the germinal idea for "Murder One" came while he was producing "L.A. Law."

There is an O.J. connection, though. Howard Weitzman, an acquaintance of Bochco and Simpson's original attorney, is the legal consultant on "Murder One."

And there may be more than a sliver of the Simpson case in Bochco's observation about the American legal system as an ideal and a reality. "What I find so interesting about the law," he said, "is that in theory, it's everything that is best about us. And in practice it's often everything that's worst about us."